German Autumn
German Autumn is Dagerman’s most well-known piece of journalism written during an assignment to war-ravaged Germany in the fall of 1946.
His vivid account of the lives of ordinary Germans attracted much attention because he dared to see these individuals as suffering human beings at a time when all Germans commonly were regarded simply as tokens of national disgrace or guilt. Rather than blaming the German people for the war’s atrocities, calling them crazed or evil, Dagerman portrayed the human ordinariness of the men and women who were scraped by in the ruins of war. To him, the root of disaster lied in the anonymity of mass-organizations that obstruct empathy and individual responsibility, qualities without which the human race is threatened by extinction.
Stig Dagerman (1923–1954) is one of the most prominent authors among the Swedish “Fyrtiotalisterna” (writers of the 1940s). He made his debut in 1945 with the novel The Snake which was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet prize for literature. He is best known as a writer of prose, with Island of the Doomed, 1946, A Burnt Child, 1947 and Wedding Worries, 1949, but…
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Sold to: Czech Republic, Denmark: People's Press, France: Actes Sud, Greece: Kastaniotis, Italy: Iperborea, Poland: Dowody, Serbia: Mali vrt, Turkey: Everest, US: University of MinnesotaGerman Autumn is Dagerman’s most well-known piece of journalism written during an assignment to war-ravaged Germany in the fall of 1946.
His vivid account of the lives of ordinary Germans attracted much attention because he dared to see these individuals as suffering human beings at a time when all Germans commonly were regarded simply as tokens of national disgrace or guilt. Rather than blaming the German people for the war’s atrocities, calling them crazed or evil, Dagerman portrayed the human ordinariness of the men and women who were scraped by in the ruins of war. To him, the root of disaster lied in the anonymity of mass-organizations that obstruct empathy and individual responsibility, qualities without which the human race is threatened by extinction.
